Wichita eagle., 1887-10-19

the sea. A man that's got his living 0u1
| Of them for ten years Is fit for nothing els<
in Gods world. He can't get away. He's
J spoiled for everything else under heaven
He's got to have the sky and q chance tG
| breathe. It's about all there is to get,
better than he can have anywhere else
but it's a sure fact that so much he's got
to have whatever else gets left. It's like
poem, may bel amt much on rhyme
! myself-driying across them in warm
weather; horses fresh and well fed,
with big tent and spring cots fol
camping and supply wagon with every
thing you can think OF but ice, and may be
that; all the world a-ripple with summer
green; like the south wind surging like a
warm ocean and the sky blue and soft and
arching away up to the greet white throne.
That's one thing. To go trailing along,
horses dead beat and half starved, pulling
q big wagon through sloughs up to the
axles or over frozen ruts that wiring every
bolt in the concern and every bone in your
body, while mile after mile of dead grass
stretching out to the edge of the world,
with buzzards swinging up out of nowhere,
more like something internal than any de-
cent living thing; with coyotes yelping and
crying all night-that's another thing, and
the kind that doesn't get talked about
much. Perhaps you don't remember that
item in last winters newspapers half
dozen lines or sO-two families frozen in a
Texas nOrther, horses, dogs and all, just
as they stood.
That night we went into camp ten miles
from home. There was a ravine and
plenty of brush, and the horses were
ready to drop in their tracks, and that
last ten miles was one of the things that
couldn't be done. So we got our fires
made and our horses fed and sheltered as
well as we could, and put some heart into
ourselves with buffalo steak and hot cof-
fee, and the rest of them packed them
selves into the wagon. Some one had to
stand guard and keep the fires going, and
took the contract.
1t wasn't dark night. There was a
goOdish bit of moon behind the clouds,
and it made a gray kind Of light over every
thing. We were at the bottom of dry
canyon that ran east and west, and the
wind did not reach us. 1t screeched and
screamed over our heads, and through it
all there was kind of moaning roar, as
if we were at the bottom of tide as deep
as the stars are high. / got to thinking
about old times away back, of one Sun
day night just before we were married.
had gone east a little sooner than we ex-
pected, and had to wait for her things to
be finished. We went to church that
night. A keen, crisp, still night it was,
when the sleigh runners sQueaked on the
snow and the moonlight traced the shad-
Ows Of the elm on the white ground as if
they had been put in black drawing. The
church was warm and bright and they
hadn't taken down the Christmas greens
yet, so the air was full of the smell of them
that spicy, haunting smell, that seems as
if it came somehow from world before
this.
1t was years since had smelled it, and
sat and listened to the music and looked
at the people, with their comfortable
clothing and faces that were cheerful, not
worn and wrinkled with care and weather.
Molly was an awfully pretty girl in those
days; all pink and white like an apple
blossom, somehow. And fighting to keep
awake out there in the heart Of a Kansas
prairie, got to thinking about her as she
was then and how she had changed. Skin
the color of tanned leather now, and that
wild, hungry look in her blue eyes, as il
they were always staring into the dark for
tIdt 1iiBhtCDCu lCi. ANU DOtn
her children dead, and not even a spray
of the pine she loved so, nor breath Of
nothing but dirt floor and log
walls that did all that was expected Of
them il they kept the weather out
Somebody hailed over the top of the
bluff
'What camps thatY'
''Kenyon and mates"
'I lowed it was''-scrambling down
the sides of the gulch on his sure footed
Kenyon News for you. A
kid up to your ranch, ten days OH All
hands doing well yesterday morning"
The rest reused themselves, sleepily.
He had got off the trail, and seeing our
smoke had struck for it. We knew and
be knew that the chances were that it
saved his life; but he swallowed his cof-
Zee and smoked his pipe and turned IL
with the rest as IL getting lost In
norther was one Of the things that hap
pened, Of course, to every man.
Then sat and thought while, and
finally reused out Madison.
You take my turn" said to him;
'Im going home
Not brute that will travel''
''rn DO my own traveling-on foot"
you'll pass in your checks before
morning."
''No, the wind Is at my back; no fords;
III keep going" and went.
Went; half running, with the wind
Irving me on till / was ready to drop.
Once / fell and lay there with the wind
iragging and tearing at me till / began to
yrow sleepy, and then / had to get up and
90 ahead again.
Perhaps you never tried crossing
prairie at night without a trail to follow.
It's curious thing, one / cannot account
ior: one that makes you feel as il your
body and all your senses were OF DO more
account than spent cartridge. 1t hap
Dened tn me that night, space and time
seemed TO get all mixed up together all at
,nce racing along; IL seemed 10 me that /
iad been keeping up that sort OF thing for
hours. | felt so adrift somehow-so hor- |
ribly lost-as if / Ind slipped out Of my |
self and was out in space without a land |
mark To measure anything by. ! expect |
you'll have to try it yourself 20 know |
what / mean. had no watch: there was |
40 way of knowing how much tiIse had |
gone OF all the devils that can enter |
nto man uncertainty Is the worst |
Every sort of q fancy came into my head. |
Perhaps did not know the route as well |
Is / had thought. Perhaps / had even |
passed the cabins and was going away |
from them with every step i ought TO |
have reached them I'm three hours at the |
utmost. Ii seemed To me that had been |
hurting along for twice three hours |
Once tried naadly TO fight back into the |
wind II was hopeless, worse than use
ess- should drop with exhaustion fn a !
'cyr minutes and ulrlst keen going